An image forming system includes an image forming apparatus and a server. The image forming apparatus i) forms an image, ii) measures position information of the formed image, iii) detects environment information, iv) determines first correction data based on the measured position information, v) determines second correction data from the detected environment information by using a transfer function, vi) corrects a position of an image to be formed based on the first correction data and the second correction data, and vii) transmits the position information and the environment information to the server. The server viii) receives the position information and the environment information from the image forming apparatus, ix) predicts, based on the environment information, predicted position information to be measured using the transfer function, and x) controls whether or not the transfer function of the second determination unit is updated based on the predicted position information and the received position information.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. An image forming system comprising an image forming apparatus and a server, the image forming apparatus comprising: an image forming unit including a photoconductor drum and an exposure unit and configured to form an image; a measuring unit configured to measure a measurement image formed by the image forming unit, and to output first position information of the measurement image; a temperature sensor configured to detect temperature in the image forming apparatus; a calibration unit configured to determine first correction data in a calibration based on the first position information output by the measuring unit; a determination unit configured to determine second correction data from a temperature difference between a current temperature detected by the temperature sensor and a previous temperature detected in a previous calibration by using a transfer function; an adjustment unit configured to adjust an image forming timing of an image to be formed by the image forming unit based on the first correction data and the second correction data; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit the first position information and a temperature detected in a current calibration to the server, in a case where the calibration unit determines the first correction data in the current calibration, and the server comprising: a receiving unit configured to receive the first position information and the temperature from the image forming apparatus; a storage unit configured to store the first position information and the received temperature; a prediction unit configured to predict, based on the received temperature, second position information using the transfer function; an update unit configured to update the transfer function based on the first position information and the received temperature stored in the storage unit; and a control unit including a processor configured to determine whether or not to update the transfer function, and to transfer the transfer function updated by the update unit to the image forming apparatus in order to update the transfer function of the determination unit in the image forming apparatus, in a case where the control unit determines to update the transfer function.
2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein one of conditions for the control unit to make the update unit update the transfer function is that a difference between the second position information predicted by the prediction unit and the first position information is equal to or larger than a threshold value.
3. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit is further configured to transfer the transfer function updated by the update unit to the image forming apparatus when a difference between position information predicted by the prediction unit using the updated transfer function and the first position information is equal to or smaller than a threshold value.
4. The system according to claim 1 , the system further comprising a system management server, the system management server comprising: a second control unit including a processor configured to perform control for determining a first image forming apparatus in which a number of updates of the transfer function is equal to or larger than a first threshold value and determining a second image forming apparatus in which a time period since the start of use of the second image forming apparatus is equal to or smaller than a second threshold value and in which the number of updates of the transfer function is smaller than a third threshold value; and a second updating unit configured to update the transfer function based on the first position information and the temperature at the first image forming apparatus, wherein the second control unit is further configured to perform control for updating the transfer function of the second image forming apparatus by using the updated transfer function updated by the second updating unit.
5. The system according to claim 4 , wherein the system management server further comprises a maintenance prediction unit that obtains histories of coefficients of the transfer function of each image forming apparatus from the image forming apparatuses or the server, and then determines one or more coefficients that can be used to determine necessity for maintenance of a component of each image forming apparatus and their values based on the histories of the coefficients and maintenance histories of components of each image forming apparatus.
Cooperative Patent Classification codes for this invention. Click any code to explore related patents in that topic.
November 28, 2011
March 1, 2016
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